


we might just get away with it

by secretlyhuman



Series: take me out (and take me home) [3]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Catholic Guilt, Childhood Sweethearts, Comfort/Angst, Established Relationship, F/M, M/M, Minor Character Death, Origin Story, Teen Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 10:00:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24847945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretlyhuman/pseuds/secretlyhuman
Summary: He rolled onto his side to look at the man that lay across from him. Gently he reached out and brushed his fingers along the strong line of his jaw and the soft pink patches above his eye. This was what being young and love was meant to be.“I never told you about Shannon.” He hasn’t said her name in so long it feels wrong in his mouth. Like he’s betraying her by feeling the way he does now.
Relationships: Eddie Diaz/Shannon Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Series: take me out (and take me home) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1783606
Kudos: 28





	we might just get away with it

**Author's Note:**

> I’m writing this series completely out of order because quarantine has absolutely fucked with my motivation to do things. this will probably sit in between chapters 4 and 5 of im with you but i will update this note with where it actually sits when i've written it. title is from [false god](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjD3LoXp-Pw) by taylor swift 
> 
> kudos and comments make my day :)

It was one of those weirdly sad summer nights, the ones were the heat is heavy on your chest and it’s almost too perfect. Eddie was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. He and Buck were lying in his parent’s backyard staring up at the sky. A little drunk but mostly sober, Chris safely sleeping inside. He was amazed that this was his life. It was more than he thought it could be. He was happier than he’d ever been but also unbearably sad.

He wondered what Shannon would be doing if she was still there. Would she like the man he was now. 

He rolled onto his side to look at the man that lay across from him. Gently he reached out and brushed his fingers along the strong line of his jaw and the soft pink patches above his eye. This was what being young and love was meant to be. 

“I never told you about Shannon.” He hasn’t said her name in so long it feels wrong in his mouth. Like he’s betraying her by feeling the way he does now. 

“You don’t have to Eds.”

“No.” His voice is a thin rasp but he wants to keep going and piece by piece it all spills out. 

…

When Eddie was six a girl moved in down the street. She was a year older and she liked cars almost as much as he did. They would race up and down the hot Texas streets playing pretend, laughing and covered in dirt. From the moment she moved in they couldn’t be separated. 

They grew up next to each other, two kids who loved each other with everything. And as they grew they grew with each other. He was going to be a good soldier, hopefully a medic, anything to get out of El Paso. She was going to be an artist, a good one. She was always covered in paint. 

Eddie didn’t know much outside of El Paso but he knew that he would explore it with her by his side. 

When he was fourteen he had kissed her and she had kissed him back and it was messy and awkward but it was theirs. All of their firsts were shared because who else would they give them too. His life was a freaking fairytale, he had plans and a girl he loved. Their parents got along and they were family and they were in love. 

…

By the time he says this to Buck tears are streaming down his face, hadn’t let himself think of the childhood that died with her in years. He rolls into his boyfriend's arms and cries. It's a rough sound that hurts his throat. He doesn’t know if he’s ever mourned properly, not just for her but for the way he had planned for his life to go.

Here he is with a wonderful thing but he feels so heartbroken for himself at seventeen, whose entire world had shattered multiple times over. 

He just cries into Buck’s arms; the other man silent and stroking his back. Eventually he feels solid enough to continue. 

…

She was beautiful and passionate and Eddie spent all his time thinking about running away with her. He was sixteen and the world was so big and he was going to make something of himself.

He had to for her. 

And then everything shook for the first time. The world he imagined ceased to exist the first time he saw the faint line on the pregnancy test. He thought they had been so careful, they were good kids who didn’t deserve it. That night they both just lay in her bed and cried, knowing something had changed that couldn’t be undone. 

From that day on he just felt heavy and slow.

She clearly didn’t, she had a plan. And they were Eddie and Shannon, whatever they did they did together so he was happy to be along for the ride. Would have been happy, if happy was a thing he felt anymore. 

They knew they loved each other and were going to get married someday. Knew they wanted kids someday. So why not now, she argued, what was stopping them. His hands were always clammy with nerves, waiting for the moment she was going to realise he had ruined both of their lives. 

He felt like he was dying in slow motion. 

She wanted the baby and he wanted her. He didn’t know how to change the vision of the life he thought they were going to lead. When he told his parents they were so angry he thought they were going to disown him. Eddie Diaz the good Catholic boy who was sixteen and unmarried. 

They were children and he didn’t know how to be the person he needed to be. 

The complications with the birth were even worse. He couldn’t lose them, couldn’t be a person without them. Without her. He felt like a terrible person for even imagining he walked away with her and not a baby. The doctors were cold to him, and didn't tell him what was going on. He couldn’t imagine what they looked like to them. Two teenagers crying and making the best worst decision of their lives.

…

Buck has never heard him this quiet or this slow, but he still doesn’t interrupt. Eddie’s sat up now, hugging his knees to his chest but Buck’s right there beside him. 

…

Despite it all Christopher was the best thing that ever happened to him. He was completely perfect. One good thing in a world that was trying to knock him onto his ass. 

He was a great father to his boy. He didn’t buckle under the pressure of making sure the small baby was cared for. He got a job at the grocery store, made sure Shannon didn’t have to drop out, did the night feeds. He even kept up as best he could with online school. He slept maybe two hours each night but he felt more alive than he had since he’d seen the test.All of his time was dedicated to making sure he could eventually give Chris the life he deserved. 

Shannon didn’t take the same way. She clearly blamed herself which Eddie couldn’t understand. Chris’s CP didn’t make him any less perfect, he was a great baby. Their roles had seemed to switch, now Eddie held all the energy of the two of them. She slept and went to school. When she was with him they fought. She couldn’t stand how manic he was. 

She couldn't stand him anymore.

He just wanted to be what they needed. Had to be what they needed. He couldn’t bare the idea that she didn't need him anymore. She had outgrown him and the life they had dreamed of and one day she said she was leaving and didn’t know if she was coming back.

…

Eddie doesn't know how to tell the next parts of the story, he’s never had too before. This might be good practice, he thinks, for when Chris wants to know. How do you tell the story of a world ending and all the stars collapsing inwards? The tears are still streaming down his face. He wonders what Buck is thinking of him, he’s probably realising how broken and selfish he is. 

“You’re not.”

“What?”

“You’re not broken or selfish. You’re a great man Eddie Diaz.” Buck sounds frustrated with him. “You’re doing your best with a terrible hand and you’re doing so well.” 

He didn’t realise he’d been thinking aloud and instead of responding he just sinks further into the man’s embrace. 

…

It was his fault Shannon died. If he had been better she wouldn’t have been driving. She was driving away from him.

The doctors told him she had died on the scene and it hadn’t hurt at all. That couldn’t be true because his whole body was on fire. There was no part of him that didn’t hurt. He hadn’t known if he was screaming or sobbing or both and he didn’t know if he could ever stop. 

They moved to LA to escape the ghosts but he thought he might be one. He didn’t know how to be a person without her. It felt like all of his skin had been peeled back and he was just a collection of raw nerves. 

The planet kept turning and it was all so achingly unfair. 

…

Buck is so alive beside him that he feels so much like the ghost he was when they first moved here. They had family in L.A and he was smart enough to get into a good college. In another life there was an Eddie Diaz being the good soldier he had always planned on being, without Chris but with Shannon. He thinks that version of himself is probably the better man. 

He presses his face against the other man's chest to hide that he’s almost sobbing from the pressure of it all, the storm building inside his head. He never thinks of that grey summer before Chris or the blank days he barely remembers. 

He could have never pictured how his life is going. Where he is is golden but he wishes he could have got there some other way. His heart is so full of love but also broken into tiny pieces and he can’t stand it. That all of this exists at once. So he just cries into the arms of a man he thinks he may love and prays to whichever God is listening that wherever Shannon is she’s happy and she’s proud of him. 


End file.
